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what's the best Saxophone you could buy?

what's the best Alto Sax that you can buy when you know you are ready to start getting real serious with your work? i hear Selmer makes great sound on the Sax, but i just want what Gerald Albright is playing.

Avoid:
Selmer (note the similarity to the vaunted SELMAN name)
Yamaha (they have no soul)
Vintage horns like Conn, Buescher, Martin and King. There's a reason they are vintage.

But seriously, JazzyE,this is a bit of a silly question (hence my silly response).

<Serious mode on>

Buy a good instrument, a good mouthpiece, get a good teacher, practice your butt off, listen to everything you can. When you get some skills and chops and get some sounds in your ear and decide what you want to sound like, you'll be able to pick what YOU like.

If pressed, I'd have to say the best alto saxophone you can buy is a Selmer Mark VI with a 140852 serial number. It is not for sale.

Steve

Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid. -- F.Z.

Jazzy, if you spend the next 4 years reading tens of thousands of messages on this forum you will eventually be able to conclude, with much authority, that the answer to your question regarding which sax is best is: "Nobody here knows." Or, perhaps one could say: "Everyone here knows, each with a different opinion." In other words, your question cannot really be answered in this thread. If you live in a large metropolitan area, consider yourself lucky, and go try some horns when you are at a point where you will be able to tell a difference and feel confident about your preferences.

the souless Yamamaha really takes a bad rap .. moreso than Yani for some reason

As a player of a Yamaha Baritone and Soprano, I have oft-times wondered the same thing. I owned a Yanagisawa 901 soprano for a while...and I did try the various iterations of the Yani Baritones 901 and 991, before settling on a Mark Six for 3 years and then ultimately a YBS 62. The Yani's left me cold. Competent, indeed and nicely made, but for me kinda of uninspiring. I have a friend who sounds great on his 991 Bari, but it was not a horn that spoke to ME. I know that's the way some folks feel about Yamaha.

What if all you could ever get was mint chocolate chip ice cream? Ice cream would be boring, no? It's the possibilities of different flavors, textures and nuance that makes ice cream so inviting, no? I'd never turn down an opportunity to have ice cream... But if I'm not enamored with the flavor I've sampled that particular time, I won't get it again.

That's what different brands of saxophones are for me. I'll never turn down an opprotunity to try a new one. (or an old one) And if you like a different flavor better than me, that's cool. I just know what I like, what I am comfortable with and what helps me make the sound I hear in my head.

There are so many variables in the instrument from sound, intonation, response, evenness, bright, dark, ergonomics, blah blah blah, not to mention the human variables and the perception variables that it can never be said what is the best saxophone. But it sure is cool to live in a time where you have so many flavors to choose from.

So opine away! As long as you agree that Ben and Jerry's "Cherry Garcia" is the best ice cream ever.

Steve

Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid. -- F.Z.

Jazz E-
You have three options.
1. Buy the most expensive modern horn you can afford. Spend the next few years or decades buying and selling cases of mouthpieces, searching for the sound you want.
2. Buy the most expensive mouthpiece you can afford. Spend years buying and selling vintage horns, searching for the sound you want.
3. Buy any pro level horn in good shape, whether new, used or vintage. A new horn will be worth less once you buy it. Used and vintage horns will hold their value better if and when you decide to sell. Get a good hard rubber mouthpiece. If you buy new, send it off to a tech to clean it up. If you buy used, send it to the tech. In a few years, your sound concept will evolve and you will be able to make a better decision about changing equipment.